Nickel and Dimed : On (Not) Getting by in America By Barbara Ehrenreich, Frances Fox Piven ISBN: 9780805063899 ASIN: B0075OQY3Q Published: 2002 Number of Pages: 240 Edition: Other Binding: Paperback

Pricing & Availability: Additional Details: Product Type: Book Publisher: Holt Paperbacks Description: Essayist and cultural critic, now author of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich has always specialised in turning received wisdom on its head with intelligence, clarity and verve.With some 12 million women being pushed into the labour market by welfare reform, she decided to do some good old-fashioned journalism and find out just how they were going to survive on the wages of the unskilled--at six to seven USD an hour, only half of what is considered a living wage. So she did what millions of Americans do; she looked for a job and a place to live, worked that job and tried to make ends meet. As a waitress in Florida, where her name is suddenly transposed to "girl", trailer trash becomes a demographic category to aspire to with rent at USD 675 per month. In Maine, where she ends up working as both a cleaner and a nursing home assistant, she must first fill out endless pre-employment tests with trick questions such as, "Some people work better when they’re a little bit high." In Minnesota she works at Wal-Mart under the repressive surveillance of men and women whose job it is to monitor her behaviour for signs of sloth, theft, drug abuse, or worse. She even gets to experience the humiliation of the urine test. So, do the poor have survival strategies unknown to the middle class? And did Ehrenreich feel the "bracing psychological effects of getting out of the house, as promised by the people who brought us welfare reform?" No, even in her best-case scenario, with all the advantages of education, health, a car, and money for first month’s rent, she has to work two jobs, seven days a week and still almost ends up in a shelter.As Ehrenreich points out with her potent combination of humour and outrage, the laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are cheap in comparison to the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless.With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they inhabit where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty. --Lesley Reed

International Standard Book Number: 0805063897: 0805063897 (pbk.) :: 9780805063899 (pbk.): 9780805063899 (pbk.) :
   - Terms of availability: $13.00

Geographic Area Code: n-us---

Dewey Decimal Classification Number
   - Edition number: 21
   - Classification number: 305.569/092

Main Entry - Personal Name
   - Personal name: Ehrenreich, Barbara
   - Personal name: Ehrenreich, Barbara.

Title Statement
   - Title: Nickel and dimed :
   - Remainder of title: on (not) getting by in America /
   - Statement of responsibility, etc.: Barbara Ehrenreich
   - Statement of responsibility, etc.: Barbara Ehrenreich.

Edition Statement: 1st Owl Books ed: 1st Owl Books ed.

Publication, Distribution, etc. (Imprint)
   - Place of publication, distribution, etc.: New York, N.Y. :
   - Name of publisher, distribution, etc.: Henry Holt :
   - Name of publisher, distribution, etc.: Henry Holt,
   - Name of publisher, distribution, etc.: Owl Books,
   - Date of publication, distribution, etc.: 2002
   - Date of publication, distribution, etc.: 2002.

Physical Description
   - Extent: 230 p. ;
   - Extent: 230p.
   - Dimensions: 21 cm
   - Dimensions: 21 cm.

General Note: "A Metropolitan/Owl book.": First published by Metropolitan Books, 2001.

Bibliography, etc. Note
   - Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references
   - Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references.

Formatted Contents Note: Introduction: Getting ready -- Serving in Florida -- Scrubbing in Maine -- Selling in Minnesota -- Evaluation -- Reader's guide.

Summary, etc.: "Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job - any job - could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. So began a grueling, hair-raising, and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America." "Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity - a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything - from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal - quite the same way again."--BOOK JACKET: Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered as a woefully inexperienced homemaker returning to the workforce. So began a grueling, hair raising, and darkly funny odyssey through the underside of working America. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, Ehrenreich worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Local Notes: Available at the Center for Educational Pluralism, located in Miller Hall 250.

Subject Added Entry - Topical Term
   - Topical term or geographic name entry element: Minimum wage
   - Topical term or geographic name entry element: Poverty
   - Topical term or geographic name entry element: Unskilled labor
   - Topical term or geographic name entry element: Working poor
   - Geographic subdivision: United States
   - Geographic subdivision: United States.

Added Entry - Uncontrolled Related/Analytical Title
   - Uncontrolled related/analytical title: Center for Educational Pluralism Collection.